


Pivots & Bridges

by Golden_Ticket



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Secret Relationship, interview techniques, media training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-29 08:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13923054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: Chapter One: "How to Acquire Natural-Sounding Pivots and Bridges:Develop responses that fit comfortably within your own speaking style and vocabulary. One of the worst things you can do is speak in one manner when answering questions directly and in another manner when pivoting and bridging to avoid questions you don’t want to answer directly."Chapter Two: There's a storm coming and it's called Ellen DeGeneres.OR: How to deal with the press (for Dummies).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm back at it again with my bullshit.

Jean Francois is chewing on a pen. And he has those creases on his forehead that deepen when he’s taxing them like that, those that run so deep they’re even visible through the poor webcam-feed over Skype. He takes the pen out of his mouth before he speaks, a testament to his pristine manners.

“Do that again,” he says. 

Scott groans. Tessa soothingly pats his leg under her coffee table where they’re sitting in front of her MacBook. _Just a little longer,_ her drumming fingers say.

“So, what can you tell us about your relationship,” she prompts and turns to look at him.

“Well, it’s been twenty years,” Scott starts, sounding like an old and overplayed record, fixing his gaze on her routinely. “And it’s been great to go through all of that together and I swear I will hurl myself out of the window if you ask me anything more about this.”

“Sco-ott,” she admonishes, a bit of the exasperation in her voice definitely real.

“I know,” he says and sighs. “I know the lines, just don’t make me say them again.”

“I’d say use the practice,” JF advises from his own couch in Montreal and the lucky sod has it easy. He’s not going to be spending his next week with cameras in his face being asked to disclose every last detail of his personal, private, none-of-anybody’s-business-god-damn- _private_ life. “If you want to change over from the business partners angle, you have to know the new bridge by heart. We’ve talked about this.”

“I said I never want to say the term ‘business partners’ again in my life, I didn’t say I want a new script,” Scott complains but it’s useless. 

He can tell by the determined look on Tessa’s face. She is going to be prepared for the press days and he better get prepared with her or he will live to regret it.

But before she can launch into the next play-pretend question, JF interjects, giving her pause mid-breath.

“Scott, you’re not too happy about this,” their mental prep coach says and Scott winces. 

He really isn’t in the mood for an impromptu therapy session. He has signed up for media training, not soul-searching today. Tess looks at him quizzically from the side and he buries his face in his hands for just a second to escape the burn of her gaze on his cheeks. When he comes back up to find her still watching him, he shoots her an apologetic look. She knows. She knows he hates this but she is too stubborn to let him off the hook. Not that he would have anywhere to go if she did.

“You wanted this change,” Tessa says under her breath, not quite an accusation but not quite the gentle reminder she surely intended it to be either.

“A different one, eh,” he mutters and she pretends she didn’t hear him.

“If you don’t want to do the sentences, let’s do bullet points,” she says. “Just so you’ve said it in your own words.”

“Fine,” he says. “Twenty years together, amazing partnership, nurtured and built this over the years and we still enjoy working together and going to the rink together every single day.”

Somewhere around the third rattled off bullet-point, his hand has landed on her knee and her fingers had laced with his, her thumb drawing circles around his knuckles.

“So special to have had all this support and worked hard on this partnership with mental coaches and marriage counsellors and therapists,” Tess continues with an even voice, “and we’re really so fortunate to have done this together.”

“So what’s the pivot?” Jean asks.

“It’s such a great compliment,” Scott starts.

“-to our skating, means that we’re doing our job,” Tessa continues.

“We’re portraying characters,” Scott picks up and feels his soul ascending from his body, floating overhead and looking down at himself, literally. “So we’re also actors at the end of the day-“

“-and if people see that connection and feel invested, that’s really wonderful.”

“Good,” JF says. “Now the bridge again.”

“You know, what’s really great is that we’ve had this wonderful partnership together for the last twenty years,” Scott shoots, with no hesitation. “And so on and so forth.”

“Good,” JF says. “Now the last resort?”

“I love her, it’s all true,” he says without missing a beat and Tessa grunts out a laugh she can’t help beside him but when he looks at her, he doesn’t miss the flicker of panic that crosses her face. “I’m not actually gonna say that, you know? Not that it would come as a surprise to _anybody_.”

“Oh and whose fault is _that_?” She asks and her tone is light but her eyes are serious. Serious enough for him to get a little offended. 

“Look, I’m not trying to be obnoxious-,” he starts the same time as her.

“I’m not saying it’s bad-,” she says simultaneously.

“-it’s just a bit much,” they say in unison and he shakes his head, trying hard to keep the grin off his face. He doesn’t want to turn the moment around to humour or cuteness now, not now that he has started to say what he really means. That always takes him a while so now he’s here, he’d rather have it out. Tessa must sense this because she doesn’t giggle at all, instead just keeps her focus on him and waits, ever patient and calm as a winter morning.

Scott takes a deep breath to centre himself and looks at their coach in the laptop screen who just nods encouragingly. The three of them have been here often enough to know that bracing breath comes right before Moir-stuff that will need unpacking. 

“I don’t know where the line is,” Scott says and meets two pairs of understanding eyes. This has come up before. “I don’t know when I cross over into the no-go zone. And I don’t want to tell people but I also don’t know how to stop telling them?” His eyebrows fold up and he waves his hands about to illustrate that he’s not quite sure if what he’s saying is making any sense but T’s hand flies back to smooth out the jeans hugging his thigh, so something about it must’ve been okay. “It just hurts to deny it all the time. It’s just…,” and he looks for the word but can’t find it.

“…hard to comprehend the dissonance,” Tessa supplies. Completely on point as usual.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Between the official version and what the truth is. It’s hard for me to keep pretending I don’t love you like that when I do,” he says turning back to only her. “And I know what we said and all but I can’t help but…doubt, to hear you spin it. Because it comes so easily to you.”

“It doesn’t come easy at all,” Tess says, with a firm shake of her head. “But I’ll take it over the alternative of having this broadcasted. I don’t want our relationship to be a commodity, not any more than it already is.”

“And I don’t want it to feel like a dirty secret,” Scott admits, which is really the heart of the matter. “I don’t want to feel like we’re ashamed of anything.”

“I’m not ashamed,” T says adamantly. “I’m protective. I don’t want anybody who is not our family or friends to have _this_. And if you’re uncomfortable speaking on it, I will.”

There is a moment of silence, an impasse where they look at each other and the world falls away to leave only them at opposite sides of the issue and then Tessa speaks again.

“We’ve not really denied anything, I never said I don’t love you” she says because she knows that had been important to him from the get-go. “And now with the questions that’ll keep coming, we just need this strategy in place. I’m not asking you to deny it, I’m just asking to keep it down. We’ve got the pivots and the bridges and we’ll be alright, okay?”

“And remember the last resort,” Jean Francois cuts in and Scott remembers that the other man still exists and has been watching that whole exchange with the patience of a mother probably. It takes a hot second there for Scott to pry his eyes away from Tessa and acknowledge him. “If you feel like you’re being backed into a corner, you just say…”

“…We would like to focus the conversation on our career together and keep our personal lives out of it,” Scott says and he can live with that. As far as last resorts go, this one is good, this one is true. No lies there, none whatsoever. And no denying either. 

“And for everything else, ignore the worst questions, deflect the rest and you’ll be fine,” JF soothes. “You don’t owe anybody anything. And don’t forget it’s a very stressful situation and very unique. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed and confused, so long as you know between the two of you how you feel. —On that note, let me just leave you guys alone. Homework is to know how you really feel, you can start right after I hang up.”

Once he is gone and Tessa has shut the lid of the laptop, she sinks back into the couch, onto his outstretched arm and tilts her head to look at him, close enough to go a little cross-eyed.

“You know I love you,” she says. “Beyond romance too. I love every last little thing about you.”

“Me too,” he says and closes his eyes to touch his forehead against hers. “Just promise me I don’t have to lie about it forever.”

“Not for forever, I promise,” she whispers. “Just for a little while longer. Until the dust settles.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Until the dust settles.” 

And then he kisses her, because for once, they’re alone and also just because, for once, he _can_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a storm coming and it's called Ellen DeGeneres.

"Do you want me to call JF?" Tessa asks, a mess of nerves in her voice and Scott would laugh if he didn’t feel her terror.

"That would be a little excessive, don't you think?" He says but can't fight the pit in his stomach growing wider by the minute. This feels like going onto Olympic ice with no program and no training.

"Yeah, you're right," she mutters and stops her pacing to sit on the edge of his hotel bed, too far from where he sits to touch but it's probably for the better. They need this time to prepare and while a distraction would be most welcome, it's not exactly wise. "I mean we did do well at Tout Le Monde."

Scott raises an eyebrow. Applying the concept of "doing well" to denying the side of their relationship that people seem to be most interested in (for reasons he guesses are understandeable but still frustrating in their result) seems slightly awkward. It's like the reverse of what they'd worked at all of their career. They'd invested years trying to make people believe in a love story on ice, now they're clamouring like children to make them believe that there isn't one in reality. He would laugh at the irony if he was inclined to humour right now.

As it goes, he isn't. He has just gotten in what seems like minutes ago and he'd barely put his overnight-bag down before Tessa had knocked on his door with an underlying nervousness that jumped straight from her bones to his. She hadn't even kissed him hello. Instead, she had started going off at a million words a minute about being on guard and sticking to their scripts and having the pivots down and paying attention so as to not be lured into a trap. He knows all of this but he also knows that he is terrible at lying. On _Tout Le Monde_ he had done relatively okay because he'd mostly let her talk and admittedly, in the scope of things, her insistence of denying it first there had been the smart choice. It also helped that she said it in French. He'd been able to just glance off into the distance while she said it and keep his face at least somewhat in place. Now, ideally, they would just build on that. But he's been told many times in the last couple of days that tomorrow will be no match.

There's a storm coming and it's called Ellen DeGeneres.

"And there'll be a game," Tessa says which alerts him to the fact that she must've been talking a while before. He'd zoned out, which is never a good idea when she was like that. "Like the newlywed one."

"And we wouldn't want a repeat of that," he says jokingly before he can stop himself and earns a death glare from the side of his bed.

"We'll just have to get some stuff wrong," she declares.

"We've played that game a thousand times, people can fact-check us on that," he reminds her. "That's why I'll be perpetually terrified of mascots."

Despite herself (he can see that it's _despite herself_ ), she laughs. "We'll see what we can get away with getting wrong. And if she asks flat out if we're together I'll say no."

There is a moment of uneasy silence which he feels in no position to fill.

"I know you don't like it," she says because she obviously is. He sighs.

" _I_ know it's the best choice right now," he reassures her. "I'll live."

"Just try not to contradict me," she says and that peeves him into a double take.

"Excuse me? First make sure you don't contradict yourself, missy," he admonishes. It's all in good humour but they know each other well enough to both be aware that he is not entirely kidding. And she doesn't comment on it because she knows he's right. She is better at it than he is but going from her solo interviews for her sponsoring gig, she has been walking a fine line talking about him and them as well. (Which, he is not going to lie, he'd kept tabs on with no small amount of satisfaction.)

"We'll be okay, right?" She asks him and lets herself drop down to lie on the matress, landing close enough to him to snake her hand across his back. He reciprocates the touch, turning his torso so he can run his palm across her stomach soothingly.

"Yeah," he says. "We got this."

***

"We did not have this," he says under his breath as they enter their dressing room at Ellen. Thankfully they're alone for once and so their faces have a chance to slightly recover from the plastered, panic-y grins they'd wore as armour out there. On the screen, the show is in its last moments and Scott plops himself onto the couch, lost for words for a moment. Tessa's forehead is in such deep wrinkles he wonders how her foundation stays on.

"I thought it was okay," she says, fooling exactly no one.

"I think I nodded," he says, thinking it's best to fess up to this now before she has the chance to see it for herself. "When she asked for the first time I nodded yes. I didn't even notice until it happened."

"What?" She asks, incredulous and it's hard to keep looking at her.

"I don't know, T," he says. "I wasn't thinking, I was looking at the pictures and she asked and I guess my body was just like... _sure_."

To his great surprise instead of getting angry at him, she just starts laughing, or giggling nervously more like. "I guess I can't be mad," she gets in after a moment. "I nodded when she said we'll start a family."

"I saved that," he says, confidently.

"I don't know if there was much to save anywhere out there in the first place. She's frighteningly good at this."

"Did we really do that horribly?"

"I don't know, I guess we'll have to wait and see tomorrow," she tells him and holds out her hand out to pull him from the couch. He takes it on instinct and lets her drag him up until she is snugly wrapped in his arms. "There'll be people who'll believe it. And it's the official story now so there's that."

"Think they'll leave us alone?" He asks her, stroking patterns on her back as she puts her cheek against his.

"No," she says without missing a beat. "But we'll drop off-grid like we said and eventually they'll move on. They gotta."

"We should just stay as boring as we can," he says.

"And not be seen together."

"That too," he agrees (albeit with a heavy heart, he really does wish that she could come watch him play hockey the weekend after but that's not gonna happen now).

"Good thing about the flight," she says.

"Yeah." He sighs into her clasping him tighter in her arms and consoles himself that through all this mess, at least he's sure he's hers and she's his. In every concievable way.

It's true when they say they don't really understand what their bond is, that much really _is_ the naked honest truth. They are part of one another and the progression of childhood friends to grown-up friends to partners in life on every level has been so seamless (if not without bumps) that he isn't even sure they're all the way lying when they say they're not a couple. They're together in every way but "couple" really doesn't cover it. And that's enough for him. He can tell her everything, rely on her for everything and wrap his body around and into hers when she wants it and that's _theirs_ and it's, _by God,_ all that he needs. Nobody else has to know or see that. Not until they decide otherwise...or until that family he has been very slow (too slow) to claim would be "familie _s_ " comes into play. At which point he thinks it all might get a bit too ridiculous, trying to stick to "business partners" with Tess round and glowy carrying their baby. But they'll cross that bridge when they get there.

"I can hear you think," Tess says next to his ear and he smiles. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he tells her. "Still caught up on the family thing."

"Because I messed up?"

"Exactly," he grins and they both know he's lying.


End file.
